The arrow doesn't appear to be pointing up for the Colorado Buffaloes and Deion Sanders.
After a promising 2024 season, it turns out losing NFL-level players across the board (led by Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders) was a hard deficit to make up for. The 2025 campaign was three steps in the wrong direction for Colorado.
All season long, the questions about Sanders' future got a bit louder and a bit louder. Now that the offseason is here, everyone is asking, what's next?
Sanders is still in place for now, still trying to build back a roster that will again see huge offseason turnover.
At this point, it's not clear whether there's a major makeover to be succeeded in here.
ESPN's Bill Connelly broke down Sanders' Colorado program in a new article on Tuesday, and his prognosis isn't great.
"After losing Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders, there was plenty of reason to assume some level of drop-off, but it was far worse than that," Connelly writes. "The QB position was a disaster, Sanders demoted his offensive coordinator for the second time in three years, and the defense fell far off course. The Buffaloes upset Iowa State in Week 7 and then basically packed it in, losing their last five games by an average of 40-15 to finish 3-9. Sanders faces yet another roster rebuild in 2026, and it's hard to build optimism about where this is headed."
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The last line is the key for everyone hoping Colorado football can kick it into another gear: "It's hard to build optimism about where this is headed."
Sanders still has major name value, and that will be of importance in occasional recruiting battles and in marketing the Buffaloes across the country.
But he's going to have to do something major to prove that Colorado can actually be a consistent winner on the football field itself.
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